February 2007 Archives

[Moozik: Ride - Sennen]

A nice bit of religious irony to start the week off methinks. Dave points out an interesting article regarding the beliefs of the inhabitants of Tanna in Vanuatu.

Villagers at Sulphur Bay worship a mystical figure who they believe will one day bring them wealth and happiness.

"John is our god," declares village chief Isaac Wan, who beats his fists into the ground to emphasise his words.

"One day he will come back," he says.

My favorite part?

A Christian youth worker told me how he thought the cult was childish. "It's like a baby playing games," he insisted. "Those people are holding on to a dream that will never come true," he said.

Emphasis mine.

[Moozik: Crocodile Shop - Blinding]

I returned home this evening to find a black bandanna wrapped around the handle of my front door. Most odd. I puzzled for a bit trying to work out what that meant. So I came to the only logical conclusion. You know. Voodoo.

So, then the mind starts wandering some more. What series of events actually triggers the voodoo curse then? Do I take the bandanna inside? Do I throw it in the dumpster? Do I put it on my neighbour's door and hope they get cursed instead?

So I threw it in the dumpster. I figure the whole not bringing it voluntarily inside the home thing must count for something right? So if this turns out to be the last blog post I ever write, you know I did not choose wisely and was marked for death. Or something.

[Moozik The Zutons - Someone Watching Over Me]

So it would seem that Lost has slipped somewhat in the ratings.

The saga of plane-crash survivors stranded on a dangerous and surreal island once drew an impressive 20 million-plus viewers as it helped raise ABC from ratings purgatory, gained cultural-phenomenon status and won the 2005 Emmy for best drama. But eight episodes into its third season, "Lost" has taken a painful nosedive, with an audience of 14.5 million for its Feb. 7 episode and 12.8 million — its lowest ever — for this week's show.

Which in true don't-be-so-over-dramatic eye rolling fashion, has meant some predicting its demise is imminent.

"Lost is the tragedy of the season," said Marc Berman, TV analyst for Media Week Online as well as a fan aggrieved by what he considers ABC's bungled handling of a favorite show. "They really prematurely put the nail in the coffin. It's too late to save it."

Will 'Lost' ratings plunge doom series?

Ok so while having a mid-season hiatus probably wasn't the best idea they've ever had, I don't think it's too late to "save the show". Sure as any fan, I'm a little bit frustrated that we're three seasons in and there are still so many unanswered questions. But that's what keeps me watching every week. I'm hopelessly addicted right to the end ;-)

Dave isn't on board though and I must admit I did chuckle at his rant.

Today I got lambasted by a friend because I am not watching Lost and Heroes.

"HOW CAN YOU NOT BE WATCHING THE TWO COOLEST SHOWS ON TELEVISION?!? she screamed at me. "OMG! THEY ARE BOTH GETTING SOOOOOOOO GOOD JUST NOW!"

Yeah, well I had fallen for that before, and swore never again, so I decided to ask a few questions about Lost...

* "Have they explained what the smoke monster is?" — No.
* "Have they explained what The Others wanted with Walt?" — No.
* "Have they explained why The Others took the baby?" — No.
* "Have they explained what The Others are doing on the island?" — No.
* "Have they explained what Hurley's numbers mean?" — No.
* "Have they explained what the island is for?" — No.
* "HAVE THEY EXPLAINED ANYTHING ON THAT STUPID, STUPID SHOW?" — No.
* So, in other words, they're still just piling more confusing shit on top of the same old crap instead of wrapping anything up and going forward? — Uhhh... yes?

Plodding

Heh.

[Moozik: Kraftwerk - Chrono]

I know I've watched more movies over the past couple of weeks but I'll be buggered if I can remember what they were. So, three that I do remember then.

Relative Strangers. Well, it looked amusing from the previews and had a relatively decent cast. I think in hindsight I've been giving Ron Livingston a free pass because of the brilliance of Office Space and if this movie is any indication, I should probably think twice about that from now on. So, in short, it had potential and was a nice idea but was ultimately let down by a horrible script. Best avoided.

The Guardian. It's been a good while since I've seen a Kevin Costner movie that I've actually liked. I think, hmmm, probably Wyatt Earp in fact. So I was quite pleasantly surprised when I watched this. A little slow in places and the ending was slightly disappointing but overall an enjoyable couple of hours. Sshh, and Ashton Kutcher actually doesn't do a bad job. I know. I'm shocked too ;-)

The Departed. I had been looking forward to watching this for ages. In fact I was pretty sure that I'd end up being disappointed because I'd read so many good things about it and it looked really good in the previews. I mean, it couldn't be that good right? Well, I shouldn't have worried. One of the best movies I've seen in quite some time. Amazing casting. Jack Nicholson was good as always. And great performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Ray Winstone. This is one of those movies where you don't even realize that a couple of hours have gone by and you find yourself glued to the screen. Thoroughly recommend. Go watch it. Really.

[Moozik The Jesus & Mary Chain - Come On]

I paid off my car loan a few weeks ago which, you know, is always rather nice. It would appear that I overpaid at some point, presumably the automated payoff quote I got over the phone was a little off. This meant a little surprise was waiting for me in the mail in the form of a refund check.

Well alright. Nice. So I open it and just stare. At my check. For $0.06. Oh, I'm so cashing this at my bank. I just want to see the look of "you came in here for that" on the teller's face. You know, it's the principle of the thing ;-)

[Moozik: Pop Will Eat Itself - Ich Bin Ein Auslander]

We're The Police, and we're back

Heh. Extremely nice to see The Police on stage again even if they only played one song. And as an extra special bonus, they opened the show which meant I didn't have to spend any time fast forwarding. How convenient. You see long gone are the days where I can actually sit through the entire thing. I've read a few accounts of last night's show and was certainly glad I didn't cause myself unnecessary grief by attempting to watch live.

[Moozik: Heaven 17 - We Live So Fast]

...is more coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death. Really. CNN's Jack Cafferty, sums it up for me quite well I think.

CAFFERTY: Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead, Wolf?

BLITZER: Yes, we're going to -- updating our viewers coming up shortly on...

CAFFERTY: I can't wait for that.

BLITZER: ... the mysterious circumstances surrounding that, Jack. Thank you.

[Moozik: Goldfrapp - Number 1]

Not that being a signatory to the treaty is any guarantee that this kind of thing won't happen anyway, still a little worrying though.

PARIS - Nearly 60 countries signed a treaty on Tuesday that bans governments from holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of its key European allies were not among them.

The signing capped a quarter-century of efforts by families of people who have vanished at the hands of governments.

Many other Western nations, including Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy, also did not sign the treaty. France introduced the convention at the U.N. General Assembly in November and it was adopted in December.

U.S. Doesn't Sign Ban on Disappearances

[Moozik: Depeche Mode - The Sun & The Rainfall]

The Daily Mirror website has had a redesign. And it is really quite awful. The phrase "ahhh, my eyes" doesn't quite do it justice. If there's one thing I absolutely cannot stand with any site are those bloody auto-start embedded media players. If I want to watch the video, I'll be the judge of when I want to click play mmmkay? But the Mirror's site doesn't just have one media player. I'll let Adam explain when posing the question of How Many Video Players On A Single Page Can You Get?.

Well? The answer according to the new-look mirror.co.uk is three! One on the left, one on the right, and a big one in the middle!

A word of advice - don't try playing them all at once. The planets get into alignment or something and bad things happen...

Except that they do all play at once. Hilarity ensues.

[Moozik: Front 242 - Quite Unusual]

Last month I stumbled across MP3Gain. It sounded like a potential solver of the problem I was having with my music files having varying volume levels. In the end I decided to give it a try because the modifications it makes are completely lossless and you can always rollback the changes no harm no foul. So you've got nothing to lose really.

Because I have quite a few files I let MP3Gain analyze my tracks overnight and then write the APEv2 tags while I was at work. That was two weeks ago and I've been testing out the volume levels since then. I can say that I've been extremely happy with the results. It certainly passes the simple Kevin Spencer test. When listening to my music at home and at work via my iPod, do I have to constantly reach for the volume? The answer is no, I don't.

Well, I *almost* never have to reach for the volume. They should all be 91db but for some reason some of the songs on Gary Numan's "Living Ornaments '79" live album are way too loud and scare the crap out of me every time they play. I'll have to remember to check the tags to see if MP3Gain missed those for some reason.

[Moozik: The Bravery - Tyrant]

About a month ago I mentioned that I was a little miffed that embedded YouTube clips did not appear in Bloglines or Google Reader. Well, at the end of January Google announced that Google Reader now supports embedded YouTube clips (and also those from many other sites too).

Unfortunately the official Bloglines stance is not quite as promising as I would have hoped.

Unfortunately, we currently only support using YouTube videos in enclosures. (Just like you were attaching a podcast to the post, put in the SWF/movie URL)

We don't currently support YouTubes inline-post format, due to possible security issues with running untrusted flash.

Which is all rather disappointing. So, after using Bloglines for what seems like forever, today I finally decided to make the switch to Google Reader.

It's a little too early to say whether this will be a permanent move as I must admit that I do like the Bloglines UI and had there been no embedded video problem I wouldn't have even considered switching. Mind you, another thing Google Reader has going for it are those luurvely Gmail keyboard shortcuts. Love those.

So time will tell.

[Moozik: Killing Joke - Darkness Before Dawn]

Today was Super Bowl Sunday in case you've been living in a cave. This means that I had my annual exposure to the world of what Americans lovingly call Football. Now don't get me wrong, I actually like American Football when I watch it, and I even understand the rules ;-) Not entirely sure why they need to wear pads and helmets but that's a concept this former Rugby player is never going to grasp and a friendly discussion for another day ;-)

For me, watching the Super Bowl is like having three chances for something good to happen. If the game is mediocre, there's always the half time show. If the half time show is mediocre, there's always the amusing specially made commercials. So let's see how this year worked out.

Mediocre game? Check.
Mediocre half time show? Check.
Mediocre commercials? Check.

Between the interceptions, fumbles, incompletions and general fuckupary I actually nodded off towards the end of the second quarter. I feel a little sorry for the stick Rex Grossman will get in the press for his, er, performance. Still his multi-million dollar paycheck should help sooth those wounds.

Prince singing Foo Fighters eh? Sure, I'll go along ;-) I actually bought a couple of Prince Albums on vinyl way back in my youth so have a lingering slight interest in Princey things. Not that I've really paid attention to anything he's done since whatever album Alphabet St was on but still wanted to see how he looked/sounded after all these years. Wasn't too bad but still left me with a feeling of, well, meh.

This year's commercials were awful. In past years there have been some really good ones that actually made me laugh out loud. With the exception of the Doritos commercials, this year was really quite poor. The Budweiser ads were lame, as were the careerbuilder.com ads, the fedex ads, and would someone please shoot whatever exec keeps letting godaddy.com place ads. That is all.

So, only another 364 days to go until I get my next American Football fix - in my neck of the woods no less.

[Moozik: The Killers - Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine]

So hopefully they don't forget about Phoenix if/when they announce the tour. Always thought The Police were one of those groups I was never destined to see because they couldn't work out their differences.

NEW YORK (AFP) - Legendary 1980s rock group The Police are to reform to play at the annual Grammy Awards next month, more than two decades after the British trio called it quits, the ceremony organizers said.

The group, who last performed together in public in 2003 when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, are to play at the Los Angeles awards on February 11, according to a statement on frontman Sting's website.

The announcement is sure to add fuel to rumors that Sting, along with drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers, are planning a comeback tour to mark the 30th anniversary of their forming in 1977.

'The Police' to reform for Grammys ceremony

Then all I'd need would be The Smiths to reform. But I'm not holding my breath for that.

[Moozik: The Smiths - That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore]

America loves its sporting events. No, really it does and the fans are really quite passionate in their support. Having lived here for, blimey, goodness knows how long now, I see this all the time year after year. Sometimes though I must admit that every once in a while there is a little overstating of the size and importance of the occasion.

Take the upcoming Super Bowl for example. Adam points to Dave Barry's quote:

It's here, South Florida -- Super Bowl Roman Numeral 41, the biggest sporting event in the world, unless you include other parts of the world.

You'll hear that a lot, the "biggest sporting event in the world" part I mean. I heard it on CNN this morning and I always have to grin when I hear something like that especially considering that American Football is not even close to being the most popular sport on the planet. That title belongs to a sport known in the rest of the world as Football.

That reminds me of something that happened here locally a few years back. In 2001 the local baseball team, the Arizona Diamondbacks, won the world series and were crowned "world champions". I remember thinking that world champions was perhaps just a little exaggeration because of that whole rest of the world not actually participating thing. American champions certainly, but world champions? Not so much.